


this dreary night ends

by Kurokoo



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Attempt at Humor, Fluff, Gen, Magic, Platonic Relationships, but that's a minor point, niki is a gardener witch, sbi are stupid, they are friends that’s it that’s the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28777365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kurokoo/pseuds/Kurokoo
Summary: Niki’s new neighbors were…eccentric, to say the least.
Relationships: Niki | Nihachu & Everyone, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 116





	this dreary night ends

**Author's Note:**

> title from [dreamy night (lilypichu)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXuNJ267Vss)

There were four of them.

Privately she wished there were only three, because then she could get away with calling them the Three Stooges, but unfortunately she had to be content with the Highly Strung Quartet. Shame.

They moved in sometime around late-March spring, when the magnolias were in bloom. She remembered because the bamboo groaned in frustration when they saw the four figures hugging boxes in the distance, being a sensitive bunch. Strangely enough, they wouldn’t respond to her for another four days.

For some reason, she’d been certain one of them would die soon. Not because the stars said so (she only did star chart reading for dying plants), but because they were just like that. A likelihood for death was guaranteed with those personalities.

She wasn’t certain what they did or how they would potentially die, but they had only been there for a few weeks, so it was bound to clear up soon. She didn’t dislike them or anything — in fact, they seemed pleasant overall, and her stubborn succulent hadn’t shrivelled up yet since they came. She took that as a sign of good luck.

It was not.

~~~

Niki had met the first one (second violin) a week after they arrived.

She’d been worried over the state of her tomatoes, even if it was a bit early for that, because the nighttime temperature hadn’t been good for them. The night had been sweltering, making her cottage sweat and work to keep everything cool inside. She patted the walls affectionately and made a note to call the priests for a blessing, meaning she would get a free weather charm instead of having to pay that stingy wizard more than he was worth. Damn Eret for thinking that just because they had tea together every Wednesday, he could give a 5% discount and not 15%. That tea was specially brewed longjing and she wanted her money’s worth.

She had gone outside and had gotten one breath of fresh air before picking up a gentle guitar and vocal melody from the back. Intrigued, she moved forward and called, “Hello?”

The strumming stopped. Niki brushed past her bamboo shoots, pausing for just a second to feel at them (they were delicate beings). Assured of their comfort, she stepped through to the tomato patch.

There was a man perched precariously on the edge of her fence, one foot poised over a precious tomato square and one swung over the edge. “Don’t move, please,” she yelled before he could stress out the tomatoes.

“I just wanted to serenade your plants,” the guy laughed nervously, wobbling as his guitar shifted. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. They’re just so stressed out.”

Niki paused with her hand outstretched. “How did you know that?”

“Ha!” The man flipped his head so exaggeratedly his beanie fell off, but he pretended not to notice. “I may be a bard, but my father was a farmer prized for his — holy _ahgmfg_!”

She winced as he toppled forward and slammed down face-first into her tomatoes. Their energy shifted alarmingly, and she rushed forward to soothe both man and plant. This was going to be so hard to explain to her buyers come summer.

Niki guessed the man must have been at least slightly chagrined by that stunning display, but neither of them mentioned it as she helped him up. “I’m Wilbur,” he said, exceedingly polite, and shook her hand. Personally she thought that stuff could be skipped over once someone’s seen you sing for their plants and fall on your face in a tomato field.

“I’m Niki. I live here, as you can probably tell.” She smiled. Wilbur was tall and lanky, more so than most others in the town.

“I live, uh, over there.” He waved his hand vaguely south. “With these three other guys.”

“Oh, you’re one of — _oh_.” _No wonder my bamboo hated you,_ she thought in amusement. _They’re such a superstitious bunch, they probably smelled the tomato scenario on you._ Out loud, she just laughed. “We’re neighbors, then.”

“Oh, yeah.” He shook her hand harder. “Right, I have to go, bye!”

Niki blinked. “Wait, but your — ”

But Wilbur had already jumped the fence and ran back, disappearing into the branch of forest that separated their properties.

She sighed and bent down to pick up his guitar. Didn’t he know these things were expensive?

~~~

Niki met the second one (first violin, and yes, she knew the order conflicted) a week and three days after they arrived.

At that time the kudzu was being naughty again and had latched onto the side of her cottage, and she needed to give it a bit of a talking-to. “If the other vines can stay where they belong, you should be able to as well.” It drew back, rustling gently in shame, and she patted it. “Thank you. And try not to poke the pumpkins too much, they’ve been complaining.”

Before she could go back inside, her ears picked up the sound of something hurling in her direction. She leapt to the side, just narrowly avoiding getting staked to the wall by a gleaming diamond sword now buried to the hilt in cement.

Niki gaped at it for a few seconds. Had that been an attempt on her life? Thank god for the elf ancestry on her grandmother’s side lending her good senses, because otherwise she would have died! She leaned in to inspect it and experimentally tugged on the hilt, but it was stuck fast. Oh, dear. The merchants probably would think badly of a gardener with a sword stuck to her house. And after all those years of building up credibility, too.

She trudged back into her house, resigned to the fact that Lanvad’s Lady of Davin would never again buy flowers from her for her many children’s weddings. Three more and she would have had the entire set, but alas!

Just when she had begun calculating if the blacksmith would pay enough for the sword to cover the cost of her lost clients, three quick knocks sounded from her door. Niki glanced up, rearranged her features into neutral-positive, and hurried to open it. “Hello?”

A man stood awkwardly on her doorstep, weight shifted nearly fully on his left leg. He was tall — not Wilbur tall, but tall. Her eyebrows raised (in a good way) when she saw his pink hair, then went further up (in a bad way) when she saw a hint of blood on the cotton of his pants. He seemed to notice and shifted again to hide it. “Hey,” he began awkwardly. “Have you seen this, uh, this diamond sword? It’s about this big, very shiny, might have killed something…not you, apparently.”

Niki watched him with growing bewilderment. First of all, he was entirely inaccurate with his estimation, almost an entire five inches off the actual sword length. Second of all, who said things like that? Still, she welcomed him in graciously. “Come in. Yeah, your sword’s in my garden.”

“It is? Wow, sorry.”

He did seem regretful. Maybe not regretful enough, but Niki had dealt with more brash and rude clients than this (Jschlatt’s Emporium turned downright despicable in its bartering). “It’s okay. May I ask what you were doing with it?”

His eyes darted away, drinking in her cottage. She patiently waited as he intensely studied a painting of a cockatrice, then shifted to stare at her clay kettle. Finally, he dragged his gaze back to hers. “Oh, you know…” He didn’t go on, so she didn’t press further.

Until, that is, they got to the wall, and the man turned to look at the sword. He frowned, grasped the hilt tightly and yanked once. The sword slid out of the concrete so smoothly she would have believed he’d slathered it in butter, but it was still dry with only its natural reflective sheen in his hand. Niki glanced down at her own palms, calloused from years of labor. She wasn’t weak, far from it — though rare, when invasive plants she couldn’t tame reared their ugly heads, she had to battle with them. “How did you do that?” She examined the crack in her wall and hummed thoughtfully. That didn’t look good.

“Well, you see, I put my hand on the hilt and tightened my fingers…”

“Hey, actually, let’s step away from the wall for a second.”

“What? Why?” Still, he didn’t protest when she took his arm and began leading him away. They were a healthy couple meters away when the crack began spreading, running up the wall and gaining speed. The wall trembled, shook, and finally collapsed into flying chunks and dirt like a heavy concrete sigh.

The man gaped at the wall with a conflicted and bemused look on his face, but Niki just sighed and thought of what, exactly, the merchants would think of a gardener who lived in a house with a busted wall.

~~~

Niki met the third one (cello) a week and five days after they arrived.

After realizing that it had been his little sword trick that had knocked down his neighbor’s wall, the man had begun apologizing and searching through his pockets. Niki thought it would be over after he’d gone through four, but then the man had just opened his jacket and reached deeply to eight smaller pockets hidden in the folds. She stopped looking when she caught sight of a small knife stashed in one.

The man had introduced himself as Technoblade, someone who lived “with three losers because I can’t do better with all my student loans.” He offered her a business card marked only with the name Philza and a balicali1 code. She’d nodded and acted grateful and sent him off without even getting mad, which seemed to relieve him, but privately she had tucked the card in some drawer because gardeners couldn’t exactly afford to rebuild walls on a whim. After two days, she’d forgotten all about it. And worse, she’d forgotten to give Techno the guitar to take back to Wilbur.

The loss of her wall sucked, sure, and it was Techno’s fault, but Niki just couldn’t find it in her to antagonize him over it. After all, he’d already mentioned having student loans, and Niki didn’t have those because witches always looked for ways to improve the lives of their progeny. And besides, Niki’s heritage granted her natural immunity to the elements. It would be fine or whatever. Crime rates were low in this town, so it wasn’t like she’d face any grave danger. Her grape vines could weave together and block out the worst of the winds and rain.

But then she’d come home one day after purchasing food in the square, only to hear the low sounds of human muttering coming from the back of her house. Imagining a worst-case scenario in which a robber (or worse, a team of robbers) broke in, she crept through the front door and grabbed the poker lying next to the fireplace, unsure of what she would do with it.

Closer and closer she went through the living room (with the cockatrice painting). She burst through the kitchen (with the kettle), brandishing the poker like nunchuks. “I don’t really want to use this, but I assure you I will!” she yelled. “Also, I have the mayor on balicali speed dial!”

She paused. In front of her, there was a man standing in a wool jumper, holding a notepad and staring at her with a puzzled expression. “Oh, you’re — oh!” His face lit up and he stretched out a hand. Niki shook it on impulse before shaking her head and remembering that _she was carrying a poker and only slightly afraid to use it, you know_. “How are you? Sorry if I scared you.” He gave a purposeful glance to the poker, and she dropped it, embarrassed. “I’m Philza. Technoblade knocked down your wall, right?”

“Um…” What was she supposed to say to that?

“Of course he did. Hi, sorry, I’m one of your neighbors.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said cordially, glad they at least weren’t meeting in her tomato patch or tearing down one of her cottage walls. “Can I ask what exactly you’re doing, though? Not that I don’t like that you’re here, of course, I’m just curious…”

Phil smiled. “I’m the owner of a construction company, and I’m really used to cleaning up after their dumb stunts.”

“So it wasn’t an attempted murder?”

He leaned in and swiped his finger on the floor, gathering a bit of dust that Niki hadn’t been able to sweep away. “No, I think he was playing frisbee with Tommy.”

She tried to wrap her head around the fact that (a) Techno and ‘Tommy’ had been playing frisbee with a _sword_ , (b) one of them had flung it so hard it sailed down the hill from their house and embedded itself in hers, and (c) they owned a sword. Nobody owned a sword except Jschlatt, who also slept with a battle axe and both eyes open.

“So, again, so sorry about that. But I’ll help you renovate for free! I’m surprised you haven’t pressed charges yet.”

“He’s broke,” she explained. “It’d be unfair of me.”

“You’re nice.” He tucked the notepad away. “Tommy’s been sued three separate times, and he’s still a minor.”

“Lucky him.”

“Yeah, lucky not to be rotting in a jail cell. I have half a mind to let him, when I’m too tired to call up my lawyers.” He waved jovially. “We’ll start construction in a bit. Sorry, again!”

She opened her mouth, but he had swung a leg across his horse and was already riding up the hill. They’d start construction in a bit? Then where was she to sleep, in the woods? Niki quickly calculated food, magic and that three-week survivability course she’d taken last spring and decided it would be fine. Yeah, she’d be totally, completely fine.

~~~

Niki met the fourth one (viola) a week and six days after they arrived.

Phil had apparently assumed that she had a place to stay while doing construction, and had shook her hand and waved her off yesterday evening. Without the heart to tell him she was but a humble witch living off the local economy, or that her parents were three cities away, she had nodded hastily and run off into the woods behind her cottage. There she had made camp with a few supplies, stress-grown carrots, and cursed her luck.

She spent most of the first day annoyed at the unconventional business scheme Philza had. And at herself, for not being able to speak up and say she had nowhere to go.

Just when she had resigned herself to spending the next week alone, who should show up but the guy who had set all this into motion?

Niki had been coaxing her newest patch of lettuce up, examining the leaves, when a shout sounded from behind her. Alarmed, she shot to her feet. The cry had been pained. Childhood medic lessons flashed through her mind, and she surveyed the area. “Hello?” she called. “Can you hear me? Who’s there?” There was no reply, so she followed the call deeper into the woods. “Hello? Hello?”

“Help!” someone yelled. She rushed over, relieved to have found him. “I’m, uh, I may’ve — ”

“Don’t move!” She leapt over a log and found herself standing besides a creek. There was a blond boy kneeling in front of a small gully, staring morosely down below. “Are you hurt?”

The boy twisted over, surprise flashing in his blue eyes. “No, but look!” He gestured at the gully and sighed as if in great grief.

Niki climbed next to him cautiously and followed his gaze to a small plastic packet sitting in the dirt. “Did you…drop that?”

“Yeah. It’s the biggest mistake I’ve made in two days.”

“…What was the last mistake?”

“Buying it in the first place.” He hung his head despondently. “I was just trying to be a better person. I’ve no idea why, none of the others do any trying.”

Niki had never felt so utterly confused by someone speaking English since the day she started learning it. “What do you mean? What’s so important that you’re reduced to this by its absence?”

“My guitar spoons,” wailed the boy.

Niki’s head short-circuited for a good sixty seconds. “Your — your what? Sorry?”

“My guitar spoons,” he repeated. “My brother plays the guitar, but he’s a loser who was too humiliated to beg for mercy from the person he left his guitar with. So, in the spirit of being the best brother ever, I got him guitar spoons as a replacement!”

“That’s very nice of you,” she said graciously. And then paused. Oh, no, was she the person with the guitar? That would make this guy’s brother Wilbur! “Tommy,” she began. “Actually, I — ”

“Help me, please,” he interrupted, casting hopeful glances her way. “These guitar spoons cost good money, and my brother will be so happy. I can pay you with a guitar spoon! Like a commission, you know? When you buy houses?”

 _Why is he acting like I’m a real estate agent?_ she thought, but nodded. With a wave of her hand, a dying tree stretched its branch just a bit farther in a last stand to scoop up the packet. It balanced precariously but steadily climbed up, and Niki whisked it into her hands the moment it was in range. With a pat on the tree’s branch, she handed Tommy his guitar spoons and turned to tend to the tree. Not heal it, exactly, as nature’s course was not to be disrupted, but to ease it on its way. Trees liked lullabies.

Behind her, Tommy whooped with joy and clutched the plastic to his chest. She examined the package, finding it contained a few multicolored, guitar-shaped spoons. “Thank you! Also, what the hell are you doing in the middle of this forest?”

“I’m camping. What about you?” She reluctantly turned away from the comforted tree, and Tommy easily fell in step behind her.

“My brother — his name’s Wilbur — tried to take them from me because he thought it was a bomb and I was going to blow his room up.”

Niki faltered, her foot pausing over a crinkly leaf. “He what?”

“I know, right? Completely unreasonable. Even if I tried, Techno and Phil would never let me because of rebuilding costs or whatever. This is what I get for being a nice person.”

With that, Niki’s worst fears were confirmed. The guy who serenaded her tomatoes by moonlight, the guy who knocked her wall down playing frisbee, the guy who kicked her out of her own house for a week, and the guy who begged her to get his guitar spoons out of a gully were her four new neighbors. And worse still, _they were related._

She shook her head and kept walking. After arriving back at her tent and bidding Tommy goodbye, she took the guitar spoon Tommy had given her as payment and threw it into her campfire as a sacrifice. “Oh, gods that rule over this earth,” she prayed, “I beg of you, spare my other three walls.”

Having gotten that over with, Niki put out her fire (elemental magic was hard, but this was small so she managed) and crawled into her tent. Only when her face was nestled comfortably into her sleeping bag did she remember that she’d forgotten to go back home and get Wilbur’s guitar for Tommy.

She said another prayer, this time for her tomatoes. This would not be the last she saw of them.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. slang for crystal ball-call. yes, i made it up, but tell me we wouldn’t have slang like that if it existed irl Back
> 
> also, here are the [guitar spoons](https://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Spoon-Stainless-Steel-Coffee/dp/B07LB2C8BT/ref=sr_1_42?dchild=1&keywords=Guitar+Novelty+Gifts&qid=1610668133&sr=8-42) i'm thinking of on amazon


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